The Morning After

Just came in from cleaning off Lou's car, and mine, too! Snow up to my knees to walk through. There was a very large tree limb on top of my car but we think it fell after the heavy snow had left padding enough to avoid damage. Wind is so cold and blowing snow in one's face. We are attempting to clean the driveway snow so that I can leave for home later today after the Pats game. We can do it.....I think!!

We had to clean the eaves areas first to avoid ice dams, now Lou is using his little electric snowblower to do the driveway.

 

Ms G is lurking around following the sun to each of the windows.  She slept under the quilt for awhile last night while the wind howled.

 

All is well.......

Snow

The big storm is just beginning to rear its head here on Cape Cod. It is nearly dark as night and we have heavy winds and a few flakes, but it promises to be much worse in the coming hours.

My Saturday morning board meeting was canceled, and I am now at LM's house hunkered down with both of us hunkered down with Ms G.

LM just brought his electric snow blower and cords in to the house and has all his other clearing tools in the kitchen. Cars are backed in to the drive, and we have plenty of food.

Our biggest concern is a power outage and not being able to watch the Pats vs Broncos game tomorrow. Life is good.

I will report back in later.  Stay safe and warm everyone!!

Winter Calm

While the mad scientist is at work in the kitchen at home, I have been spending a cozy happy weekend with my beloved LM and Ms Graysea.  She is right by my side at this very moment, cuddled in her favorite fleece throw. 

 

We are slowly moving toward taking down the Christmas tree this afternoon, and might watch a movie. I do know a certain someone who will be watching more play-off football later today (he barely survived the agony of watching the Patriots' Game yesterday), and I may or may not cook a meal at some point.  Meanwhile, I am enjoying the quiet before football din takes over later.  At that point I can retreat to the comfy wing chair in the kitchen to continue reading my current book, Orphan Train, by Christine Baker Kline. It is a compelling book, if not exactly upbeat, but I am learning about a time in this country of which I had no prior knowledge.  In the 1920's when the children of immigrants(in this case Irish) were sometimes taken away and placed on "Orphan Trains" that traveled to the west and middle west and left these children with other very poor settlers. The book came highly recommended to me by my  brother, and I always trust his judgement on books!  Hoping to finish the book today, as I am anxious to start another of his faves, "The Nightingale." 

My project of organizing and discarding some my quilting fabrics, went very well last Thursday.  I managed to find everything I was looking for, and to pare down my collection of fabric.  The process got me all lined up to finish a quilt I began the day my father died in 2009.  Intentionally it is a fun quilt, and I hope will go to Teddy in a few years.  This quilt contains cats from my extensive collection of cat fabric, and a few donkeys, too. A lot of my favorite things! I madly sewed 25 log cabin blocks in a very short time, and needed 3 blocks to make the size right. I couldn't even look at the blocks without feeling deep grief.....now that has eased.  Fast forward 7 years.. I've been having a terrible time choosing border fabric.  I kept wanting to use a dark fabric, but in the past few weeks I realize that the busyness of the blocks really needs a white border to allow them to expand and float. The plan is to use a white fabric with  tiny and faint black pin dots.  The binding will be a very thin strip of orange.  I am hoping to have this quilt ready to enter in a show this summer.

 With everything else going on, I do struggle with focus, so it helps that I now have the remaining work  all set to begin.

In the meantime, I think I wrote somewhere about becoming a member of the board of directors for a new art center that is opening in our neighborhood (literally a less than 5 minute walk from my house).  The wheels are turning fast on the project, and I am very excited for the opportunity to play a small role in bringing  new vibrancy to a much loved old school.  Here is a link to some photos taken last week when a group of local and state government officials came for a tour. The building has the most wonderful light and huge windows.  There are many classrooms, a gym/auditorium, a cafeteria, etc, and a lot of land on which to expand.
http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20160114/NEWS/160119687

I do believe, I titled this post Winter Calm, even though it does seem like a pretty hectic pace, but it is all things I love, and reflects calmness in my spirit to be creating.

Tomorrow, LM and I are taking Teddy and Samantha to Rhode Island for the day to visit Kristi. We haven't seen her for awhile, but she is doing so well in her foster home.  I will get some photos.  Now if the snow storm being talked about moves a bit north to give us safe travel.....we shall see.

Alas, Ms G's peace has been disturbed. LM is now taking down the tree and he placed one of my vintage cat glass ornaments next to her face, and her peace has been invaded by another "cat."

Peace and love......

Driving

From the vantage point of being retired for 18 months, it seems almost impossible that my life has become so different. Most days I love it, some bring a trapped feeling, but others (and today is one) give me such a feeling of freedom. I can choose to do whatever I want, be around others, be completely alone, just being ME......and, being me can be very strange, say I laughing out loud, as I did this morning.  It is a bitter cold day with very heavy wind, but the sun is so bright and beautiful.

After getting Mr T off to school, at 8:30 I came home to lovely quiet, with the morning sun pouring in to my sitting room, and while finishing my morning tea, proceeded to go through my paper pile that always accumulates on the table beside my chair.  I consolidated lists, checked off a lot of things now done, entered movies to see and books to read into my computer files, wrote some notes to friends, paid bills, and worked out some budget matters for the month, and ordered some border fabric for my current quilt project. While preparing to leave the house on the expedition of the day, I pulled out my collection of fabric. It is all stored in a small clothes closet, and tonight I will go through each box and weed out fabric I will never use, and donate it.  So all that took me about 1.5 hrs, and I was out the door with a small list of things I needed. 

After the little errands were done (and how nice to not feel rushed, and be able to look to my hearts content.....today's haunts were TJ Maxx, and Michael's.  As I walked through the icy wind back to my car, I thought, hmmmmmm, I can now pursue my favorite past time and have no restrictions, except a tad of common sense, of course......I LOVE to drive around and look to see what is happening. Today took me all around Middleboro, Wareham, Rochester, Bourne, and a few other places. With only natures bones exposed at this time of year, there is so  much  more to be seen and savored,  There were lots of cranberry bogs to be enjoyed, some flooded to protect the vines from freezing, others just beautifully glowing in their deep red winter coats, and others being worked on with sand, new soil and plantings.  Very interesting. Soon some of them will be covered with ice skaters.  I found restaurants I have read about, and new businesses going in, and others, sadly being torn down. One particular old favorite, The Chicken House, in Middleboro, being razed to make room for a solar project. I was literally driving for 2.5 hours and kept thinking how lovely to have the time to enjoy something that has been a part of my life since I can remember.  First with my grandparents and parents, then with various partners, and so often alone, driving and looking (carefully, of course) has saved me, delighted me, and taught me so much.  There is always a book by my side, and if a beautiful spot arises, I love to pull over and read for awhile.

I took no photos, as I just stayed in the moments and yet, "photos" of my travels today, will last forever in my mind, and serve my sanity well.

Teddy Snippet

Having tea in my sitting room this morning, when Teddy walked in with his camera. He began opening drawers to photograph the contents.  "Teddy why are you taking photos of Nana's things?" (pens, packing tape, old address books, quilting supplies.....go figure.  I have no claim to how his very active mind works.

"It is just surveillance, Nana!!"  He also mentioned that it might be too hard for Aunt Margaret to climb the stairs when she visits in May, so he could show her my things by scrolling through photos.  Sweetness!!

Here is my dynamic and SWEET duo at dinner last weekend

Mg G feels it is her job to keep LM's computer warm at all times.

The perfect vantage point and with just a slight turn she's spying on the neighbors, but her favorite task is keeping her "people" under surveillance at all times. No wonder Teddy is doing the same thing!

Settling back in to school schedule again, after what seemed like a long holiday vacation. My days are mostly revolving around Teddy's schedule, but there is some time for cooking, thrift shopping, and seeing friends.  Life is so good!!  Went to a Savers' store in Plymouth today with a neighbor, and we were very successful. I found a great new crockpot, and some lovely insulated drapes for LM's house. We will use them to block off the stairway to the second floor, to keep the downstairs cozy for the winter. Ms G still likes to go up there to sleep during the day, and she can just push the curtains aside to gain access.
Wishes for health, love and peace to you all.